General Dynamics Warns Of Abrams Line Gap
General Dynamics executives are expressing concern over the lack of orders for the M1A2 Abrams tank after 2013, which leaves a gap until modernization orders slated to begin in 2016.
Mike Cannon, senior vice president for ground combat systems, tells Aviation Week that “we are very, very concerned about the tank industrial base, because it’s unique . . . we have nothing to keep that base going between 2013 and 2016.”
The only other Abrams program the company has going right now is with Saudi Arabia’s M1A2, and that is projected to wind down in 2014, “so we’ve really got nothing in the pipeline,” Cannon says. One option to keep the line open, he says, is to upgrade (or “pure-fleet”) the remaining hulls that have the System Enhanced Package (SEPv1) to the newer SEPv2 configuration.
The fiscal 2012 budget has money to upgrade 21 tanks, which Cannon says is “enough to get us through a year, a year and a half. The best idea is to pure-fleet the entire United States Army to the SEPv2 configuration,” which he admits is an “expensive proposition because there are still 791 M1A1s in the guard and reserve.” He estimates that it would cost $2 million to upgrade the tanks from SEPv1 to SEPv2.
A spokesperson for The Heavy Brigade Combat Team office, which oversees the Abrams program, says the Abrams modernization program is still pending a fiscal 2011 Materiel Development Decision, which “will help determine the scope of modernization which will inform the funding requirement. PM Abrams has funds which can be carried over from FY11 to cover anticipated FY12 development costs.”
If the line is left cold from 2013-16, Cannon warns, the smaller suppliers that provide General Dynamics with the parts to do its upgrade work will be out of the Abrams business. Already, because the company was on a multiyear contract, many of its contractors have already built out their orders.
When asked about the gap looming on the Abrams line, Lt. Gen. Robert Lennox, the Army’s deputy chief of staff, G-8, recently told a group of reporters that “sometimes you have to stop building some things and start building something else.” He stressed that the Abrams is one of many programs that the Army is looking at upgrading; but due to the budgetary continuing resolutions that have kept the Pentagon running this past year, and the fact that only one platoon of Abrams tanks are currently in the fight in Afghanistan, priorities need to be evaluated moving forward.
Photo: US Army
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